Dr Isabela Fairclough
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Isabela is a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics in the School of Psychology and Humanities at UCLan. She is also a postgraduate Research Degree Tutor in the School. She teaches across a range of subjects in the English Language and Linguistics team: discourse analysis, argumentation and rhetoric, framing theory, pragmatics and cognitive semantics. She has published articles and chapters on practical reasoning, media framing, deliberation and decision-making, with application to economic, political and environmental debates, including controversies over shale gas exploration, austerity policies, pandemic strategies and gender identity.
Isabela supervises doctoral projects in argumentation theory, discourse analysis and media framing. Her publications include the monograph Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students (2012, Routledge), two other monographs with the University of Bucharest Press, and the edited volume Language and Power. Essays in honour of Norman Fairclough (2021). Her research interests are in the fields of discourse analysis, framing theory, argumentation theory and the philosophy of critical rationalism. She is currently working on a book provisionally entitled The Rhetoric of Framing, for Cambridge University Press.
Isabela has a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Lancaster (2004), with a thesis on the transition from communism to liberal democracy in Eastern Europe. Until 2010, she was Associate Professor and Course Leader for the MA in Discourse and Argumentation Studies at the University of Bucharest. She has extensive experience of working as an IELTS and Cambridge Examiner for the British Council Bucharest (1997-2008) and for the University of Manchester (2008-2014). She has taught discourse analysis on doctoral programmes at the universities of Aalborg, Birmingham, Helsinki, Tampere, Napoli and Umea, and has given many invited talks, keynotes and papers at international conferences and events in the fields of argumentation theory, discourse analysis and interpretive policy analysis. Between 2018 and 2023, as secondary proposer and management committee member, she took part in the Horizon 2020 COST Action project CA 17132 European network for argumentation and public policy analysis, led by Dr Marcin Lewinski, New University of Lisbon.
In 2023 she received the ISSA Distinguished Scholarship Award for her contributions to argumentation theory. She gave the opening keynote at the 10th ISSA conference in Leiden, Netherlands (July 2023), on a critical rationalist approach to “deep disagreements”. Her latest keynote was at the University of Coimbra (Portugal), in October 2024, on the framing of migration in the UK.
- External Examiner, University of Liverpool, since 2023
- Trustee of the Karl Popper Charitable Trust
- PhD Linguistics, University of Lancaster, 2004
- Diploma de Licenţă, University of Bucharest (English Language & Literature/French Language & Literature), 1988
- One-year post-graduate research scholarship diploma, as Horia Georgescu scholar, University of Oxford, Somerville College, 1992-1993
- Distinguished Scholarship Award of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, University of Leiden, 2023
- Discourse analysis
- Argumentation theory
- Pragma-Dialectics
- Rhetoric
- Media framing
- Critical rationalism
- Pragmatics
- Semantics
- Member of editorial board for the journals Argumentation and Argumentation in Context
- Member of ISSA (International Society for the Study of Argumentation) and ILIAS (International Learned Institute for Argumentation Studies)
- Member of the Rhetoric Society of Europe
- Member of the Free Speech Union
Isabela’s publications include 3 monographs and over 40 journal articles and chapters in edited books and handbooks. In her research, Isabela has aimed to reformulate argument schemes for practical reasoning in deliberative activity types from a critical rationalist perspective, i.e. with a focus on criticism, rather than justification. She has developed a deliberation scheme and a profile of questions for the evaluation of practical proposals in conditions of uncertainty and risk, and suggested new ways of defining and representing pro/con (‘conductive’) argumentation. She has studied the contribution made by institutional contexts to rational decision-making and redefined ‘framing’ processes from an argumentative perspective. To enhance the profile of linguistics at UCLan, Isabela has organized various academic events, including the international symposium on Argumentation in Institutional Contexts (March 2017) and the Digital Humanities Workshop (February 2018). Between 2017-2019, she convened the Preston Linguistics Circle (2017-2019), whereby the Linguistics team celebrated 40 years of Linguistics degrees at UCLan.
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- Isabela is research active within the area of language, linguistics culture and society and is a member of the Research Unit for Speech and Language, of the Institute for Citizenship, Society and Change and of the Centre for Sustainable Transitions at UCLan.
- (2019-2021) Principal investigator on project entitled The impact of fracking activity on human rights, Institute for Citizenship and Social Change, UCLan
- (2018-2022) Management committee member and secondary proposer of Horizon 2020 COST Action project CA 17132 European network for argumentation and public policy analysis, led by Dr Marcin Lewinski, New University of Lisbon
- (2015-2017) Member of international research project Practical argumentation in the European energy and climate debates (2015-2017), led by Dr Marcin Lewinski, New University of Lisbon
- (2019-2021) The impact of fracking activity on human rights, funded by the Institute for Citizenship and Social Change, UCLan
- (2018-2022) COST Action project CA 17132 European network for argumentation and public policy analysis, led by Dr Marcin Lewinski, New University of Lisbon, funded by the European Commission
- Pro/con argumentation: Framing issues in the evaluation of objections to practical proposals. European Conference on Argumentation (ECA), Groningen, 25-28 June 2019 (conference paper)
- Is there such a thing as a ‘conductive argument’? Redefining ‘conductive argument’ in relation to deliberation as genre
- The 9th (ISSA) Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, Amsterdam 3-6 July 2018 (conference paper)
- Institutional constraints and risk pluralism in argumentation from consequence in the UK fracking debate
- European Conference on Argumentation (ECA), Fribourg, 27-30 June 2017 (conference paper)
- What is framing and how does it work? DiscourseNet 19 International Conference - Discourse, Knowledge and Practice in Society, Bucharest, 7-8 July 2017 (keynote)
- Climate change, energy policy and the ‘argumentative turn’ in critical discourse analysis of policymaking
- Analysing the debate over fracking for shale gas in the UK CADAAD International Conference, Catania, Sicily, 5-7 September 2016 (keynote)
- Should fracking for shale gas be allowed in the UK? Critical analysis of deliberation and decision-making in institutional contexts and the public debate on fracking
- Interpretive Policy Analysis Conference (IPA), Hull, 5-7 July 2016 (keynote)
- Argumentation in critical analysis of social and institutional change
- The public debate on universities in the UK
- European Conference on Argumentation (ECA): Argumentation and Reasoned Action New University of Lisbon, 9-12 June 2015 (keynote)
- Deontic reasons, risk and the concessive logic of conductive arguments in the debate over shale gas development in the UK. ARGAGE (Argumentation & Language) Conference. Lausanne, 9-11 September 2015 (conference paper)
Telephone:+44 1772 89 3677
Email: Email:Dr Isabela Fairclough
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